Chad Reid led the Pledge of Allegiance, and Dick Myren offered the invocation. Colleen Coons, Bob Jensen and Pai Bethea attended the meeting via Zoom. Polly Cady introduced our Youth Exchange Student, Seongiun An, who made some brief comments about his experience to date.
Our Assistant Governor Jackie Wasik asked members to keep long-time Rotarian Joe Goldblatt in our thought sand prayers as he is experiencing some serious health issues.
John Pennypacker shared some updates on our fundraising year-to-date to The Rotary Foundation. We have given $5,571 to the Annual Fund - nearly half of our goal of $12,000. We have given $3,078 to Polio Plus which is more than half of our goal this year of $6,000. John also shared that the Rotary Builds Bridges student he is mentoring this year is really great. She has good grades and attends all her classes and has been involved with Jr. ROTC. John reminded everyone to make their reservation for the gathering he has been instrumental in arranging Thursday, November 13 in the evening at Longbow Golf Club.
President Kayla Mudge announced service opportunity on November 11. Mesa Sunrise Rotary Club has a project of working the Veterans Day parade and has asked for help from willing volunteers from our club and the area Rotaract Clubs. Kayla thanked the volunteers who had helped decorate police cars and give out candy at the Mesa PD Annual Trunk or Treat event. She also thanked all the volunteers who helped make our first Life Skills event a success on Saturday, November 1.
Kayla announced that at the district level, they are asking for Rotarians to apply to be adult advisors on the Interact Ambassador trips to Mexico and Africa next summer.
Chuck asked Laura Mello, who would be one of our two speakers, to draw the winning raffle ticket. Don LaBarge received the weekly small pot, but after shuffling the cards, the card he drew was not the Ace of Clubs, so he didn't win the large, accumulating pot. The card he drew was destroyed. At our next lunch meeting, the large pot will be bigger and the odds of winning will be better.
John Pennypacker had the privilege of introducing Laura Mello, who works for Rotary International as a Regional Major Gifts Officer. Laura has a strong background in both finance and non-profit. She has been an active member of the Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary Club for fourteen years. In 2023, a PDG, guided her into her current role with Rotary International. With a heart for the good that can be done through philanthropy combined her experience as an investment officer and her years of Rotary volunteerism, her insights which were shared during her brief 10-minute presentation were very compelling.
Our second speaker, Doug Thorpe, was introduced by Polly Cady. Doug has a background in Mechanical Engineering. He has combined several of his passions in forming Argos - an educational non-profit to provide hands-on learning experiences for young people. He has a grandson who learns differently than they way most classroom learning takes place. He is an experiential learner. Argos strives to give the youth who participate in his educational activities the hands-on learning that will stay with them.
Doug said he loves boats and loves living on boats. He also said his wife is very patient. He showed photos of a large sailboat that was an empty shell when the work started on the project. The students have created an interior that can house a small crew. The sails that will become a part of the vessel need to be unique and a huge project was undertaken to have students submit their ideas so they could decide on the design. While all this work was being done, the vessel was parked in their yard in Mesa. It is easy to believe he has a very patient wife, and one who supports the things he is passionate about..
On November 23, from 2-4 in the afternoon, at Center and University, the design will be painted onto the sales.
It was clear that Doug loves what he is doing and also clear that the students involved in his experiential learning project will remember their time spent on this venture.